The Most Entertaining Fight of the Year

In most sports, fans and athletes insist that winning is all that matters. But in boxing, that illusion is hard to sustain. Because there is no central governing body to arrange matches, fighters exist in a state of constant negotiation, balancing risk and reward as they set their own schedules. Fans, in turn, have learned that a fighter’s market value helps determine his professional options—and they have learned, too, that their enthusiasm goes a long way toward determining this value. Every athlete is essentially an entertainer, but boxers, more than most, can’t afford to pretend otherwise.

No doubt Guillermo Rigondeaux, a virtuoso, undefeated junior featherweight from Cuba, has had occasion to ponder the inequity of this system. He is widely considered to be one of the world’s best boxers, at any weight, but he doesn’t sell well: in the ring, he is evasive, vexing; in interviews, he is confident, taciturn. His co-promoter Bob Arum has claimed that HBO’s executives broadcast Rigondeaux fights only begrudgingly; in Arum’s words, “Every time I mention him, they throw up.” Last weekend, in Atlantic City, Rigondeaux won a unanimous decision against an accomplished Ghanaian named Joseph Agbeko. Rigondeaux looked masterful—so masterful, in fact, that Agbeko seemed unsure whether he should be punching back or taking notes.

HBO televised the match, and although the analyst Max Kellerman is known as a Rigondeaux booster, he seemed rather unengaged, and so did the attendees, many of whom left early. In the next few days, the reviews online were as predictable as the fight. The Ringmoved Rigondeaux up in its pound-for-pound rankings, from number ten to number eight, even while calling the fight “another boredom-inducing clinic.” At espn.com, Dan Rafael called Rigondeaux “among the purest technicians the sport has perhaps ever seen,” but added, “If you made it through this entire fight without at least momentarily nodding off, congratulations.” The fight attracted scarcely half a million viewers, on average, where a big fight typically draws more than twice as many. Rigondeaux is a marvel, and a champion, but he’s a long way from being a star.

It’s not hard to understand, then, why some boxers work so frantically to capture fans’ attention. In 2013, the sport’s most accomplished attention hog has been Adrien Broner, a skillful boxer and provocateur from Cincinnati. Broner spent much of the year finding ways to be even brasher than his mentor, Floyd Mayweather: while Mayweather merely threw his money around, Broner literally flushed his money down the toilet; while Mayweather was filmed frolicking with naked women, Broner proved that he has no interest in cinematic foreplay. Like Mayweather, Broner styles himself an antihero: a flashy and sometimes foolish African-American loudmouth, the ideal foil for the down-to-earth Latinos who make up a large percentage of boxing’s élite. Though Broner is only twenty-four, he quickly ascended the rankings: last year, he established himself as probably the best in the world at lightweight, a hundred and thirty-five pounds; this summer, he moved up to welterweight, a hundred and forty-seven pounds, and beat Paulie Malignaggi, a resurgent veteran. By the time Broner arrived at the Alamodome, in San Antonio, this past Saturday, he was 27–0, with twenty-two knockouts. His flamboyance attracted casual fans, and if many of them only watched to see him lose, it hardly mattered—they would be watching, regardless.

Broner’s opponent on Saturday night was Marcos Maidana, from Argentina, a dogged fighter with a dogged career: he had three losses, two of them close; while Broner is muscular and slick, Maidana looks scrawny but punches hard. A two-part Showtime documentary played up the differences between them: Maidana, training in anonymity in Oxnard, California, said that the presence of a camera crew made him feel “un poco tímido”; Broner, whether rapping in a nightclub or recounting his hard-knock boyhood, betrayed no such anxiety. During a pre-fight press conference, Broner was relatively restrained. “I can’t talk shit to somebody who don’t speak English,” he said, adding, rather perfunctorily, “I’mma beat his ass.” For all his bluster, there is something sweet about Broner, who doesn’t seem very invested in the language of sadism—his own pleasure is much more important to him than his opponent’s pain.

The first bell rang: Broner shrugged and smirked, and Maidana walked slowly toward him, throwing some exploratory jabs. Then, suddenly, Maidana threw a wild left hook and a chopping right hand; neither made significant contact, but the fighters’ legs got crossed and Broner stumbled backward toward the ropes. Maidana pressed and punched. As the fight got chaotic, Broner raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, to show Maidana that he wasn’t bothered, but he didn’t return fire, so Maidana kept swinging. (By one count, Maidana landed twenty-six of eighty-six punches in the first round; Broner landed just six of fourteen.) Early in the second round, Maidana lunged and landed a left hook on Broner’s jaw and Broner collapsed onto his backside on the mat, with his fists sticking out through the ropes. Before the referee could start his count, Broner was standing, wobbly but alert, but he didn’t seem to have a plan. He slipped some punches, absorbed some others, taunted, complained; Maidana stayed close and busy. Even some Broner fans must have been thrilled, despite themselves, by this sight: a rising star—and, for that matter, a four-to-one favorite—scrambling to survive the second round.

Broner did survive, and he and Maidana produced a match that was about as un-boring as any boxing fan could ask for. There were times when Broner seemed to be on the verge of getting knocked out, and times when Broner used stiff, precise punches to force Maidana into retreat. There were fouls, too, and some poor sportsmanship: in the first round, after Maidana got turned around, Broner pretended to sodomize him; later, Maidana did it back to him. In the eighth round, Maidana dropped Broner with another left hook, and after Broner got up, he sought to slow down Maidana’s attack by locking Maidana’s arms under his armpits. Trying to free himself, Maidana jerked his head into Broner’s chin, which earned Maidana a one-point deduction, and inspired an extravagant routine from Broner. He cried out in pain, held his glove to his chin, rolled around on the mat, reeled to the ringside doctor for an examination, did some calisthenics, and cried out some more, stunned by the cruelty of a universe that allows a boxer to suffer such an assault.

All of this questionable activity, combined with the rowdy crowd, only heightened the anticipatory mood: during many of the best boxing matches, like this one, the possibilities seem broader and the consequences more stark; something—anything—could happen. In fact, the fight was nearly derailed at the end of the eleventh round when, after the final bell rang, Broner threw a combination that ended with a hard left hook—his best punch of the night, though an illegal one. Maidana submitted to a brief medical examination and then wandered, confusedly, to his corner. If he had been unable to continue, the fight might have ended with the referee having to make a difficult decision about whether to disqualify Broner. (Instead, the episode generated a different controversy: viewers noticed that Alex Ariza, Maidana’s strength and conditioning coach, pressed some white napkins to Maidana’s nose as he tried to recover; in response to suggestions that he had given Maidana something illicit, Ariza said that he was merely allowing Maidana to blow his nose.)

Maidana staggered through the twelfth round, and once the fight was over, he rode around the ring on Ariza’s shoulders. Boxing fans have learned to brace themselves for outrage whenever a verdict seems obvious, but the judges got it right: a unanimous decision for Maidana, and a humiliating loss for Broner. The two men embraced and then Broner retreated to the dressing room, refusing a post-fight interview. Flanked by security guards, and pelted with plastic cups, Broner looked exhausted and distraught; his sparkly trunks, which said, “About Billions” (his latest nickname), suddenly seemed not boastful but hopeful, and also, given the circumstances, a little melancholy. On Twitter and Instagram, users exchanged derisive memes, feasting on Broner’s misery. One image showed Mayweather, Broner’s mentor, laughing; the text said, “This nigga Adrien thought he was me!”

In fact, the real Mayweather sent Broner a much kinder message, on Twitter: “@AdrienBroner hold your head up champ. I love you. A true champion can take a loss and bounce back, my lil brother.”

Of course, Mayweather wouldn’t really know: he is still undefeated, at 45–0, and his invincibility is central to his image—instead of playing the brave warrior, he plays the untouchable don. Broner had hoped to build a similar career, but if he was banking on the value of being undefeated, then his value just declined. In his first tweet since the fight, Broner sounded as jaunty as ever; he wrote, “Don’t trip y’all I’m fine lol that mf @ChinoMaidana fought a good fight can’t wait for the #Rematch lol.”

A rematch might be fun, though it probably wouldn’t be as dramatic, not least because Broner would no longer be a four-to-one favorite, nor an unbeaten young star. Maidana, meanwhile, might find other offers more enticing: after Saturday night, he will be more sought-after than ever, a dragon-slayer known for his eventful fights and his perseverance, as well as his considerable skill. (Among knowledgeable observers, Saturday’s fight lowered Broner’s reputation more than it raised Maidana’s, partly because Maidana had already faced top fighters, with mixed results.) Neither Maidana nor Broner is the most popular fighter in the world, or the best; neither seems likely to eclipse Mayweather, or to beat him. But their fight on Saturday was the most entertaining fight of the year. What could be better than that?